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John Wayne

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After talking about the True Grit remake for 2 posts, I realized, I didn't watch the original till like a month before the remake came out.
I've never really watched any of his movies. I do remember watching The Sons of Katie Elder with my dad when I was a littler kid, but I don't remember much about it except it had Dean Martin and most of them died.
My dad was a huge Wayne fan, so I got a ton of his movies here. I got some super deluxe box set of The Searchers, and I think I'm going to watch, but mostly because how I heard it influenced the ending of Breaking Bad.

Anyways, post your suggestions here for movies to look out for, or just general thoughts on John Wayne.

Uninteresting side-note: My first changed screen name here, I picked John Wayne's Left Testicle. But it was too long and just showed up as something like "John Wayne's Le" whenever I posted something.

I don't like the patriotic icon that John Wayne is generally identified with. The guy carefully managed not to go to war while many in Hollywood (not even mentioning regular people) served at great risk without bragging about it after that.

On the other hand, when directed properly (by John Ford or Howard Hawks for example), he was a very interesting actor who showed vulnerability and emotion. He was also recognised as a very friendly and generous man.

Can't believe I forgot about Liberty Valance. I have seen that and it was great. I also got The Shootist because it was also Wayne/Stewart but I don't think I ever watched that one.

I've never really looked into it, but do you know how strongly he avoided going to war? I know about all the ballplayers that went and served, but I always thought they kept the Hollywood folks as mostly PR to get people to buy war bonds. I know Orson Welles was big in that aspect.

Wikipedia says this about John Wayne and WWII. I cannout vouch for its veracity, but here it is:

Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status, classified as 3-A (family deferment). He repeatedly wrote John Ford saying he wanted to enlist, on one occasion enquiring whether he could get into Ford's military unit, but consistently kept postponing it until after "he finished just one or two pictures".[28] Wayne did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing him; Herbert J. Yates, President of Republic, threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract[29] and Republic Pictures intervened in the Selective Service process, requesting Wayne's further deferment.[30]
Wayne toured U.S. bases and hospitals in the South Pacific for three months in 1943 and 1944.[31] By many accounts, Wayne's failure to serve in the military was the most painful experience of his life.[32] His widow later suggested that his patriotism in later decades sprang from guilt, writing: "He would become a 'superpatriot' for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home."[33]

I've read about Chuck Yeager getting shot down and the rule at the time was if a pilot got shot down over enemy territory he couldn't fly anymore. And Chuck fought his way all up to Eisenhower to get re-instated.
Just reading that Wiki article, I'd point a more damning finger towards whoever was running Republic than Wayne. Although, I can see him feeling guilt over it for the rest of his life.
I've read where some kids were committing suicide because they couldn't serve.

Reagan didn't serve but made war films instead. Years later when he ran for president, he bragged about his time in uniform.

Just including that because any opportunity to bash the Gipper should not go wasted.

Was it about his time in service or just uniform? That could be two different things.
Although I guess they're close enough, for the credit of one to slide onto the other.
I never watched all of his speeches, but he never seemed to be braggy about serving in WWII to me.

He made Hollywood movies throughout WWII. Usually in uniform acting as a soldier.

Jimmy Stewart was a bomber pilot. He flew sorties in WWII and

continued to play a role in the United States Air Force Reserve after the war, reaching the rank of Brigadier General on July 23, 1959.[41][53] He was also one of the 12 founders and a charter member of the Air Force Association in October 1945. Stewart rarely spoke about his wartime service but did appear in January 1974 in an episode of the TV series The World At War, "Whirlwind: Bombing Germany (September 1939 – April 1944)", commenting on the disastrous mission of October 14, 1943, against Schweinfurt, Germany. At his request, he was identified only as "James Stewart, Squadron Commander" in the documentary.[54]
Stewart received permanent promotion to colonel in 1953 and served as Air Force Reserve commander of Dobbins Air Reserve Base. In 1966, Brigadier General James Stewart flew as a non-duty observer in a B-52 on an Arc Light bombing mission during the Vietnam War. At the time of his B-52 flight, he refused the release of any publicity regarding his participation, as he did not want it treated as a stunt, but as part of his job as an officer in the Air Force Reserve. After 27 years of service, Stewart retired from the Air Force on May 31, 1968.[55] He was promoted to major general on the retired list by President Ronald Reagan.[56]

I've never really looked into it, but do you know how strongly he avoided going to war? I know about all the ballplayers that went and served, but I always thought they kept the Hollywood folks as mostly PR to get people to buy war bonds. I know Orson Welles was big in that aspect.

Funnily, one of Duke's best and most subdued performances came from John Ford's They Were Expendable, a film about a PT boat unit in the Pacific, shot just months after the end of the war with a good part of the cast having served in the Navy (the costar Robert Montgomery was a PT boat pilot and John Ford himself having directed film units in combat zones).

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